Conventionally, in vehicles such as hybrid automobiles, a plurality of wires are disposed under a floor of the vehicle in order to connect a device such as a high voltage battery provided at a rear part of the vehicle, for example, with a device such as an inverter or a fuse box provided at a front part of the vehicle. Regarding this configuration, it is known that wires may be inserted into a metallic shield pipe for protecting the wires from interference of contaminants as well as for electromagnetic shielding (see, e.g., JP 2004-171952A). A shielded conductive path, such as that described in JP 2004-171952A having this configuration is inserted into the shield pipe and then processed by means of a bending process so as to extend along a predetermined routing path after the wires.
Most of the wires inserted into shield pipes are core wires formed of stranded wires which are formed by bundling and twisting a plurality of bare wires. In order to insert the flexible stranded wire into the shield pipe, it is necessary to increase a diameter of the shield pipe to some extent. However, in the shielded conductive path arranged under the floor of the vehicle, it is desirable to decrease the diameter of the shield pipe in consideration of minimum ground clearance. To accommodate this, it is conceivable that the wire is formed of a single core wire which is made of a single conductor as a core wire, instead of the stranded wire described above, making it possible to decrease the diameter of the wire itself. In addition, the single core wire is less flexible and can be inserted into a shield pipe having a small diameter, so that it is conceivable to decrease the diameter of the shield pipe.
However, there is a difficulty in setting a length of a portion of the single core wire protruding from the shield pipe to a desired length. This difficulty arises from the length of the portion protruding from the shield pipe varying depending on the position of the single core wire inside the shield pipe in the process of bending the shield pipe. For example, if the single core wires have the same length, the length of the portion protruding from the shield pipe is larger for a single core wire running inside than for a single core wire running outside at a curve of the shield pipe. The adjustment in the length of the portion protruding from the shield pipe can be made for the wires by warping the stranded wire after the bending process. However, the single core is less flexible, and it is difficult to make such an adjustment after the bending process.
The plurality of the single core wires inserted into the shield pipe are different from each other in the length of the portion protruding from the shield pipe, because the positions of the single core wires are biased inwardly or outwardly, or deviated inwardly and outwardly. The shield pipe is bent three-dimensionally, making it very difficult to predict the positions of the single core wires after the bending process. It is difficult to predict the length of the portion protruding from the shield pipe in advance in order to set the length to a predetermined length. A solution for this problem is desired.
The present disclosure has been accomplished in view of the above problems, and is aimed to provide a shielded conductive path capable of being easily managed in terms of the length of the portion protruding from the shield pipe.